Blog

24-Aug-2008

When we first looked at the land that was to become Carraig Dulra, Gary Crocker showed us a natural spring, located down the hill, and suggested we use a "Ram pump" to bring the water up to us. This was the first time I had ever heard of this...

24-Aug-2008

I collected our second colony of bees from the man who taught me beekeeping, Willy O'Byrne, earlier this week. The hive was placed at the other end of the hive stand and at right angles to the existing one to help prevent the bees from the two...

02-Jul-2008

Wooden hives, frames, feeders, wax foundation, queen excluders, varroa treatment... bees don't need any of this, or at least wild bees didn't long ago.

These inventions are all for the benefit of the beekeeper and the crop. Just like in...

02-Jul-2008

Work in the northeast corner of the land has intensified over the past couple of weeks, as we prepared an apiary for the arrival of our first bees. Luci has been an amazing help building a woven willow fence as a windbreak. I managed not to get...

29-Jun-2008

We hosted a private birthday party of 8 year olds today, and as part of this I did a few bushcraft/awareness exercises with the kinds, ending with a demo of friction firelighting. This was optimistic because I'd never succeeded in getting past...

14-Apr-2008

We had a small group up for Peter's energy course. The first day he provided theory interspersed with examples from his experience inspecting and installing systems around the country. There were some good questions and the group had a diverse...

13-Mar-2008

We have been back at it all again since early february with Primitive living courses and preparing the ground for the arrival of spring. Our first wwoofers have been and gone and we really enjoyed having them. The abilty to travel while actually...

15-Oct-2007

As we come close to the end of the our first year, it's hard to believe how much, with help (and that was critical), we have accomplished. We are enjoying literally the fruits, well more specifically vegetables, of our labour. Cabbage and veggie...

04-Aug-2007

We would love Carraig Dulra to support and enrich the natural habitats that are so rare now. Native plants are adapted to this environment and other species are adapted to work with them too, and, well, it just feels right when you see an Irish...

04-Aug-2007

We had a short visit from Suzie's cousin Juliet and her boyfriend Sean, and they brought a few days of some of the best weather we've had in weeks! We brought the kids up and we all camped up on the land for a few days. It made it so much more...

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